


I remember when my heart was filled with gold

by tomioneer



Series: and you know I've been burned [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Barnes does not love Rogers, Bisexual Steve Rogers, Bucky Barnes Has Issues, Bucky Barnes Was Drafted, Captain America: The First Avenger Compliant, First Kiss, M/M, Pre-Serum Steve Rogers, but stands well on its own, eros versus philia, first part of a hopefully expansive series, reference to period-typical homophobia, rlb (Rogers Loves Barnes), stucky but not mutual stucky, technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-18
Updated: 2017-10-18
Packaged: 2019-01-19 07:17:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12405645
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tomioneer/pseuds/tomioneer
Summary: At first Bucky didn’t know what Steve was trying to do, just wrapping his fingers around Bucky’s and holding on for a minute. Then he thought maybe Steve was feeling a little dizzy and stooped to put his bowl on the floor, holding tighter to the fingers in his grip while he did so. “Feelin’ alright?” he asked, scooting closer on the bed. Steve’s cup was mostly empty, nestled between his legs and surrounded by careless folds of blanket. He was looking, Bucky thought with deep-rooted worry, a little red around the face and ears. More so than yesterday, that was for sure.





	I remember when my heart was filled with gold

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Rihanna's Towards The Sun. 
> 
> This is a small but important part of a series I'm slowly working on, so if pieces don't quite seem to fit it's because they aren't actually meant to yet. I apologize in advance for the guaranteeable lack of update schedule for this project. Scenes don't usually come to me fully formed like this one did. I kind of broke my own heart with it, so, uh... enjoy!

Sometime in his 16th autumn, Bucky Barnes went to visit his sick best friend, lugging along the notes he’d gotten from a sweet blonde in Steve’s class, Marie Moore. It paid to be nice to the younger girls, he thought, not just because they’d help him be a pal to Steve when he missed school, but also because he could see it made their days when he smiled at them. It was in their giggles, the flushes on their cheeks. The way some of them would duck their heads was a real treat, but it was the ones who walked straighter for the rest of the day who really stuck in his mind. Bucky liked it a lot, regardless, and his thoughts were filled with such frivolous things as he let himself into the tenement the Rogerses lived in and jogged up the stairs.

That day, he made it to the door just as Sarah Rogers was leaving for her evening shift at the hospital, and they traded familiar pleasantries like they did every day, a little play acting on both their parts. It was a holdover from his youth, but one he enjoyed: being looked at like a grown man by a lady he respected as much as Steve’s Ma always filled his chest with warmth. They had an understanding, the two of them, and some days it felt like a secret, one that filled the space between them with an unbreakable loyalty. He’d back Sarah Rogers through any crisis, bolster her in any storm, just because she was the only other person on the planet who knew the truest thing in his life.

Steve Rogers was the best thing to happen to Brooklyn, and probably the whole world. It wasn’t just because Steve was her baby or Bucky’s best friend. Rather, because of those things they were close enough to him to see the fire in his eyes, hear the passion of his speech, watch the intelligence on his face and the talent in his hands blossom with every passing year. Steve was special in a way no one else Bucky knew was or could ever be. Both of them knew Steve was meant for huge, amazing things, and that simple knowledge bound them to each other like blood family.

More immediately than that, however, Steve was, in fact, Bucky’s best friend. He tucked the day’s notes into the book he’d picked up from home on his way over and brought the whole bundle to where Steve lay unconscious in bed, and sat on the floor by the foot of it without complaint. The chair in the main room might have been more comfortable, but here he could hear Steve’s breathing and make sure, every so often, that his fever wasn’t too high and his heart wasn’t acting up.

Bucky stayed there re-reading _The War of the Worlds_ for two hours before Steve woke up properly, and after Bucky got him his water like usual and Bucky made Steve budge over so he could sit beside him on the bed, they sat up for another half hour and just talked. Steve didn’t have a lot to say that day, not after sleeping through most of it, but he had a grand story about Mrs. Leibowitz’s tabby cat getting heckled by some crows on the fire escape during breakfast which more than made up for it. With his special way of telling stories, the dips and twists in his voice, finally settled into the deep new register Bucky was only rarely a little envious of, he was able to turn the tale into a real gut-buster, and when he wrapped it all up with a dismissive gesture, Bucky was almost crying from laughing so hard.

It was, all in all, a perfectly normal day. Bucky had lived a thousand like it, and would live a couple hundred more before he graduated high school. Then there would be another thousand or so with small, precious alterations. Instead of attending school, he would spend the day at work. Rather than swing by his house, he’d be stopping in at his Ma and Pa’s place to pick up the extra dinner rolls she always made for him, even knowing he’d split them with Steve and Sarah. Eventually he would be heading home, maybe stop to help a few neighbors with their groceries or garbage, and come in to check on Steve himself, padding through the kitchen and into Steve’s part of the apartment they would share, since it was the only room without a door.

But those days, for all their importance in the way Bucky’s life would go, ever entwined with Steve Rogers’, weren’t quite as important. They weren’t the day Steve looked at Bucky over a mug of thin stew (easier for Steve to hold something with a handle when he was sick like that) and demanded, “Gimme your hand for a sec, wouldja?”

Bucky did, without thought. He balanced his bowl on one knee with his other hand, but stretched out the left and held it for Steve’s inspection, thinking maybe his friend was feeling up to drawing after all and wanted to do a quick study. Steve had made weirder requests since he first picked up a drawing pencil in sixth grade. Everything from _don't move_ to _hey, open your eyes really big and snarl and stay like that_. “What,” Bucky said with a laugh, not expecting his world to tilt on its axis by half an inch for the rest of his short life.

Instead of answer with some smart remark, Steve just reached out and took Bucky’s hand in his. His fingers were long and cold; a result of poor circulation, and privately Bucky thought spending all day cooped up inside didn’t help, despite every blanket in the house being piled on top of him during the day. Some nights, Bucky knew, Sarah slept in her coat just so Steve could keep the covers. She always took the top one in the morning before Steve woke up to make it look like she hadn’t, but Bucky had spent almost as many nights at the Rogerses’ home while Steve was sick as he had at his own when he was well, had a whole drawer in the family dresser that was just his clothes for school, and carried a key to the apartment like it was his own instead of appropriated from Steve, who almost always lost it. He was a much lighter sleeper than Steve, and he woke up every time. It was another part of their shared secret.

At first Bucky didn’t know what Steve was trying to do, just wrapping his fingers around Bucky’s and holding on for a minute. Then he thought maybe Steve was feeling a little dizzy and stooped to put his bowl on the floor, holding tighter to the fingers in his grip while he did so. “Feelin’ alright?” he asked, scooting closer on the bed. Steve’s cup was mostly empty, nestled between his legs and surrounded by careless folds of blanket. He was looking, Bucky thought with deep-rooted worry, a little red around the face and ears. More so than yesterday, that was for sure.

“‘M okay,” Steve said quietly, and let go of Bucky’s hand. Bucky didn’t really let him, snatching the hand back up and putting his fingers on Steve’s pulse.

“Geez, Steve, your heart’s goin’ a mile a minute!” he exclaimed and leaned over Steve’s lap to put his other hand on Steve’s forehead under his mussed hair. He was warm, but not as warm as he looked--not  _fevered_. “Well you seem fine. What’s all this about, then?”

Steve flinched, eyes dropping way off to the side, to the floor, to the window, to the low battered bookcase with it’s crooked shelves covered in trinkets and sketchbooks and magazines.

Somehow, maybe through intuition, maybe through just knowing Steve so well for so long, it clicked. “Steve,” he said slowly, withdrawing his hand from Steve’s pulse and leaning only far enough away to duck down and catch his eyes. Couldn’t move too far away, or he’d have to speak so loud he’d risk being overheard through the walls, and that’s wasn’t a chance he was willing to take with his best friend’s safety. Bucky kept his voice gentle, like when he was talking his baby sister through a scraped and bleeding knee. “Are you queer? For me?”

Steve’s second flinch was all the answer he’d ever need, and Bucky let out a breath. “Well, I’m glad you’re not getting sick again, I was worried,” was the first thing he said. It was true, too, but Steve looked at him in frightful confusion.

“You’re not--angry?” he asks, voice cracking. There were lots of words Steve coulda used there, a hundred bad reactions Bucky could have had to figuring this out. It hit Bucky, then, how brave it had been for Steve to reach out to him at all. To do something that could--had--betrayed his leanings in a world where they were dangerously unwanted in most company. Just another piece of what made Steve so damn special.

“Angry,” Bucky said thoughtfully and bent down to pick his soup back up. He took a bite and mulled it over as he chewed what little there was to chew. It was mostly broth. “Nah, Steve, I ain’t angry. Just worried about you. This won’t make you more popular, yanno.”

“I know. But it’s not like I don’t like girls, too,” Steve muttered, lifting his own mug back up to drain it. He let his breath go into the cup, and his hands shook a little. He didn’t look up as he asked, “You don’t feel the same, do you?”

“No,” Bucky said, because he’d learned at about six not to pull punches where Steve was concerned. Whether that meant fighting for him, against him, or just giving him bad news didn’t matter. When Bucky held back, things usually went from bad to worse. “Nah, pal, I don’t. I...” He thought of how to say it, tipping his head up to look at the ceiling. It creaked obligingly overhead, giving him a reason to keep staring, and to wait for the upstairs neighbor--might be one of the Brown girls or their parents, he couldn’t say for sure--to move back into their kitchen before he spoke. “I ain’t like that, myself. Got no problem with anyone who is, especially if it’s you, punk. But I ain’t.”

Steve swallowed hard. Hunched his shoulders and sank low on the bed, creeping a little further under the covers without moving much. “That’s okay, Bucky. I just had to know.”

That much, Bucky understood right away. It was always better to know, he thought, if a gal liked him alright or couldn’t stand him. That way he knew whether to nip a crush in the bud or maybe explore his feelings when he felt up to it. When the time was right, and Steve was well enough to go out with them--because if a gal didn’t like Steve well enough to spend time with them together, he could never bear to be with her for long--Bucky would bring him out with some girls, Marie and her friend Alice maybe, or her brother Matthew, who was in Bucky's year. Now that Steve knew Bucky would never feel the same, he could move on. Find someone else to moon after. They’d go back to normal, if maybe a little closer now that Bucky knew this secret of Steve’s. He said as much, said, “You’ll get over me, Stevie. I’m nothin’ special, we both know that. Thank you for telling me, though. Real glad you know you can trust me.”

“I’d trust you with anything, Buck,” Steve said softly, “even though you’re a jerk.” He even managed half a smile for it. Shaking his head, Steve passed Bucky his empty mug when he held out a hand for it and said while passing it over, “I think you’re probably right. Jerk like you isn’t good enough for me anyhow.”

“Oh, thanks,” Bucky laughed as he stood to get Steve more stew, and when he came back they talked like normal, and everything was fine. The days went back to what he knew to expect, and he mostly forgot, except for the part where he didn’t. From then on Bucky was careful to bring Steve out in public with two girls whenever he could manage it, double dates arranged to keep his pal safe from rumors, even if they would only be half-true, and even though the dates never went real well for Steve or his girls. And every so often, when he had a co-worker or drinking buddy who had similar interests and he thought the guy might be a good match for Steve, Bucky carefully arranged for the three of them to meet up someplace busy.

If Steve ever seemed interested in getting to know the man, he was more than willing to leave them alone to hash it out in private, but Steve never gave the signal. Every instance ended with a new addition to Steve’s hodgepodge group of friends kept at arm's length, and Steve and Bucky heading home together, talking about whatever new movies or books were coming out, or how work had _really_ gone, now they didn’t need to keep to the polite parts of their days.

Little Becca--not so little then--called them married once, and got slapped on the hand for it by their Ma, but Steve had laughed. “He should be so lucky,” Steve chortled, “to have a wife like me.”

“Wouldn’t have your blue eyes, that’s for sure,” Bucky said agreeably, and they smiled and laughed and moved on, because it didn’t matter anymore.

Ten years after that night, Steve kissed him for the first time and Bucky nearly punched his goddamn lights out. Not for the kiss, but for joining the _damn Army_ after he all but begged him not to. Grabbing Steve’s elbows, Bucky pushed him away enough to say, out of breath from the argument and the jog home to make amends and the dancing before that, “Told you I don’t want you like that.”

Face screwed up with fury to match Bucky’s own, and even more bottled up frustration than should ever have fit in his body--but God and Bucky alike knew how big his heart was, and there was more than enough room for resentment in there beside all the passion and goodwill--Steve snapped at him. “Point’s not being wanted. Point is, I still love you. I let it go, Buck, because you wanted me to, I didn’t say nothin’ all these years because you told me _no_ , and that was fine. I didn’t need to push. But I can’t let you go. Anywhere you go to, I’ll find a way to follow, and war’s no different, because I love you and I always have, and I ain’t sorry for it.”

Ten years after the fact, ten years of normal days later, Bucky recognized that long-ago agreement for the lie it was. He remembered long, cold fingers wrapped around his, and the nervous look on his best friend’s face. That had been, Bucky thought through dizzying shock, the sweetest, purest love he’d ever been offered. Another of Steve’s exceptional features. At the time, he’d been so scared for Steve he missed it, dismissed it as a passing fancy. Steve was queer some of the time, and Bucky was there all of the time and damn good looking, so even to Bucky it made sense Steve might want to be with him, or at least think he did.  

That was his mistake, and not one he could ever make again. Steve’d made sure of that, saying what he did. Back against the door, Steve’s hands shaking where they were greedily gripping Bucky’s uniform lapels, Bucky used his hands cupping bony elbows to pull Steve back in and kiss him for real. Steve gasped into his mouth, swore a bit, but settled into it mighty quick, bullying his way into Bucky’s arms the same way he’d bullied himself into the _fucking Army_.

He tried. He _tried_. Tried to enjoy it, tried to feel more than odd doing so, tried to summon a hint of the fire that was in his belly while he danced with Connie earlier, holding her close to a sweetheart song and feeling her curves against him in all the right places. But wanting doesn’t work like that, he learned, and Steve knew him too well to fake it for long.

The kiss was long and gentle, at first, while he got himself used to the angle, to the stubborn skinniness he’d known all his life being in his arms instead of at his side. When he put real effort into it, Bucky could cup Steve’s head in one hand and tip it back and kiss him with tongue and teeth, messy and angry, almost punishing, but there was no heat in. No desire--not on his part. He could feel the way Steve leaned into him, clung to him, wanted him, but--

Shaking his head, he set Steve gently away from himself and slumped against the door, sliding down to sit on his ass and hold his head in both hands. He didn’t know where his hat was, but it seemed terribly unimportant. “I can’t, Steve,” he muttered to his sleeves. “I just--can’t.”

And Steve staggered backwards like Bucky had slugged him instead of pushed gently on his shoulders, and then picked his way across the mess of their home and sat at the table, alone for a few minutes. They were quiet and uncomfortable, both of them, for a long time before Steve laughed brokenly, “I knew that already. This shouldn’t hurt.”

His breath caught in his chest, a wet sound that made Bucky worry until he realized it was crying, not sickness. Then he just felt worse, but--at least Steve was well, strong enough to survive having his heart broken.

Bucky had done that to him, to his best friend, the other half of his soul and mind. The heart outside of his body, the person in whom all his hopes and dreams rested. Where all his faith had shifted to when they were kids. Steve was the sun in his sky, most days, for all that he could infuriate Bucky better than most anyone else, but that didn’t make him in love with the guy. Honestly, he wished it did. He wished he were, to save Steve the pain: all Bucky had ever wanted for Steve was health, success, and happiness.

Well he was healthy as he ever got, middle of June and all, and he’d succeeded in joining the _goddamn Army_ , so all that was left, Bucky supposed distantly, was happiness. “Ya gotta find someone else to love,” he whispered, and the words dropped like the clash of a cymbal into the room, but they were truer than anything Bucky had ever said before. “I’m not good enough for you, I _told_ you that. I’m not right for you.”

He couldn’t be. For all that he had been wrong about during the last ten years of _normal_ , he’d been right about one thing as a kid. That long ago night of watery stew and homework, he'd understood at once. Steve’s love wasn’t meant for him.


End file.
